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Lorson rushes for 174 yards, 4 TDs in South’s dominant win against Warrior Run

By Jon Gerardi 5 min read

South Williamsport's defense started the game holding Warrior Run to a three-and-out and negative 2 yards of offense. After a punt, the Mounties got the ball on their own 42 and needed just seven plays and a little over three minutes to find the endzone.

It was that quick for South Williamsport to go ahead, and that offense never slowed down for the Mounties. No matter what Warrior Run tried doing defensively, they couldn't limit the Mounties as South Williamsport kept picking up first down after first down, and finding the endzone with ease.

South Williamsport used seven of its first eight possessions to score touchdowns en route to a dominating 49-7 win against Warrior Run in the District 4 Class AA quarterfinals on Friday night at Rodney K. Morgans Stadium.

"They got the momentum and never left go of the momentum and kept their foot on the gas pedal," Warrior Run coach Derrick Zechman said.

That's exactly what South Williamsport did.

The Mounties kept going to their ground game to pick up yardage and it worked constantly.

In the second quarter alone, Garrett Lorson found the endzone four times to approach the mercy rule. Lorson had a great 70-yard touchdown run on a reverse handoff to the left and went down the sideline for the score to put South Williamsport ahead, 14-0. He then had a 14-yard run less than a minute and a half later for a 21-0 lead and scored twice in the final 96 seconds for a 35-7 halftime lead. His final score came with just 17 seconds until halftime as South stayed aggressive and weren't content with just a 21-point lead.

"I mean my offensive line just made massive holes. I just saw the field really well tonight," Lorson said. "It definitely felt really good to have that (second quarter surge) and Colton's (Paulhamus) interception was a great momentum change."

After Lorson's 70-yard run, Logan Stevenson threw a pick on a first-and-10 from Warrior Run's own 26 that Paulhamus intercepted which resulted in South scoring three players later on Lorson's 14-yard run.

The Mounties accumulated 300 yards of total offense by halftime.

"They've worked extremely hard. It's really gratifying, … I could see the last couple of weeks they were working a little extra, be it at practice, pushing the sleds, lifting weights," South Williamsport coach Chris Eiswerth said. "I thought, you know what? These guys, I think they're kind of motivated to see what they can do and if you can control the line of scrimmage, it just makes everything else come together."

Warrior Run's only score came when Jackson Bowers found Liam Moore for a 9-yard touchdown pass with 2:38 remaining. It cut the deficit to 21-7. But any spark it provided was quickly extinguished by the Mounties, who responded instantly with another touchdown drive a minute later on the ensuing possession.

After Warrior Run's 10-play, 68-yard touchdown drive, Warrior Run's next six possessions went for a total of negative three combined yards. The final three Defender possessions went for negative 13, negative 5 and negative 17 yards.

"We worked really hard this whole week and all year," Lorson said. "Our defense has definitely gotten a lot better."

South Williamsport had two players reach milestones in the win as well. Levi Butler caught one pass -- an 11-yard touchdown in the corner of the endzone for an early 6-0 lead with 8:19 to play. That reception gave Butler 101 for his career, making him the program's all-time receptions leader.

And when Eli White had a 54-yard touchdown run with 8:36 to play in the third quarter, it put him over 1,000 for the season and over 2,000 for his career.

While the Defenders' ground game sputtered (20 carries for negative 4 yards), the passing game did see some success. Bowers threw for 97 yards and Stevenson threw for 86.

South Williamsport ended the game with 428 total yards of offense. Of that, 174 came from Lorson on 17 carries, White had 86 for seven and a score and Cade Lusk ran it seven times for 42 yards and a touchdown. White and Lusk both scored touchdowns in the third quarters which gave South Williamsport a 49-7 lead and put the mercy rule into effect.

Penalties hurt the Defenders in the end, as Warrior Run committed 10 for 110 yards.

"I felt coming in confident that we could compete, I thought it would be a good game, I really did. I was worried about us matching their physicality, which was a concern, but being undisciplined, stupid penalties, selfish penalties. It's been killing us all year and to lose guys because of it, we can't afford where we're at with personnel and everything," Zechman said. "That hurts. Turnovers killed us too, but credit to South Williamsport, they're a quality team and had a good season. They wanted it more or less here tonight. I'm proud of the kids overall.

"They haven't quit dealing with what we dealt with this year. Showing up, fighting and working our best performance by far by any means," Zechman continued. "Things got out of control, but it's life. Sometime life isn't fair you feel, but unfortunately we lost some real horses that were key to the offense and defense on both sides of the ball."

Of South Williamsport's seven touchdown possessions, all but one went for at least 40 yards. One drive went for 54, one for 59, one for 58, one for 61 and one was an 86-yard drive as the Mounties kept moving the chains each drive.

Now the Mounties are into the District 4 Class AA playoffs and are looking to keep the season going for another week.

"We're excited," Lorson said. "I think this definitely put us on the map."

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